My Brother's Keeper
by FrankandJoe3
Summary: When Dean won't tell him about his time in Hell, Sam takes it upon himself to ask Castiel.


Sam had tried to ask Dean about Hell.

He had been discrete at first, hinting and leaving the air between them open for his brother to try and let out some of what had his every dream chased with faint groans of pain and agonized whimpers that neither would mention the next morning.

When that hadn't worked, he'd been a bit more blunt and asked directly what it was like down there.

The first time he had asked, Dean had flinched. That was the extent of his answer.

The second time he had asked, a fist had tightened, but that was it.

The third time, his brother had snapped and asked him to drop it. That was the last time Sam had asked. It wasn't the last time he had wondered though.

Dean still had nightmares, and he still talked in his sleep. He would get a glint in his eyes when they would go down to the morgue and he'd see the table of all of their tools. When they got caught up in warehouses and had to fight their way out, he knew how to use tools that Sam hadn't even heard of before. Sometimes in the heat of a fight, he would cuss or yell out threats in other languages. Hell had changed his brother, and it scared Sam more than anything they had ever faced, but he never asked about it.

One night, after a particularly rough hunt that had them both smelling like everything rotten, Dean's panicked sounds woke Sam up from what he felt was well deserved sleep. He watched the silhouette across the room jerk and kick as his dream absorbed him, groaning behind his teeth and asking for help from someone who didn't seem to be coming.

Sam hurried over and shook him, hoping it would wake him up, but it only seemed to enhance whatever the dream was causing him to feel. He gave a panicked cry and jerked back, nearly right off the bed. That was the last straw for the younger Winchester. He went out the front door of the motel room and shut it quietly behind him, taking a seat on the hood of the Impala. He tilted his head skyward and heaved a heavy sigh.

"Castiel, if you're out there, and if you're listening... It's Dean."

He stopped and waited, gaze weaving its way through the few stars scattered overhead. When he didn't hear the familiar wing beat that usually signified the added presence, he shut his eyes and went on.

"Hell messed him up. Bad," he reclined back, resting the back of his head to the roof of the car. "He's been having nightmares and if he doesn't talk about it... I'm afraid it's going to end up destroying him. Castiel, please."

The windshield was cold beneath him, and it helped ease the tension from his shoulders. As he lay there, he began to lose hope. This 'profound bond' thing wasn't fair. If Dean had prayed, the angel would've been there the second he bowed his head. He should've figured that the angels would play favorites, considering their dad, after all.

"Hello, Sam."

The voice had Sam jolting up on the hood of the car, a faint smile lighting his lips. "Cas?"

The angel stood between him and the motel, his hands stuffed lightly into his trench coat pockets. He managed a small self-conscious smile at the acknowledgment, taking a step closer. When the quiet held, the distinctive blue eyes drifted to the night sky and the smile grew to be more genuine. Sam echoed him, looking back after a moment.

"I was there when my father first put the stars in the sky," the angel said softly, gaze seeming to go much farther. "I watched their birth, and I will be here when they die, just as I was and will be for all of the humans on this earth, and one day, you two."

Sam's brow tightened in the slightest, but he couldn't help but give a little smile. It was easy to forget that the tax accountant appearance was just a shell for what Castiel actually looked like.

"What is happening with Dean that you think I can fix?" the angel asked when he looked down again.

The question caught the brunet off-guard. A part of him had expected Cas to know, seeing that he was a celestial being and all.

"I ah, I don't know," he admitted, hunching over to properly rest his forearms on his thighs, fingers weaving together between his knees. "You're an angel. I just kind of... assumed... you could fix him."

Castiel's brow gave a faint twitch as his head swayed into a faint tilt. "There's nothing for me to fix."

Sam's posture stiffened as though he were offended and he straightened, managing to tower over the angel in height even from his sitting position.

"You haven't seen him," he bit out coldly.

Immediately, the brunet regretted the accusation and backed down, the fear a faint flicker in his green eyes as the angel seemed to occupy the entire space around them. A simple action of straightening his posture and letting his Grace run through his glare had the air crackling, a warning that Sam kept in mind.

"You want me to take away your brother's memories of Hell, Sam Winchester," Castiel managed to make it sound like the worst possible thing, snarled out on the low of a breath. "You fail to grasp the consequences."

The younger Winchester's fists curled, but he knew this was a fight he couldn't win, and he didn't want to try it. He stayed down, knotting his shirt up in his fingers.

"You've been watching. You've seen how much Dean's been drinking since he got out," he watched the ebony.

His eyes lost the sheer glow of his Grace, an interest peaked in where this was going.

"Humans aren't meant to consume that much. He's an alcoholic. He... depends on it to forget, and it haunts him in his dreams. It's... like his Vietnam."

Cas squinted tightly at the other, but it lacked the anger that the other gazes had. This here was what seemed like blind amusement.

"You think Hell is like a mortal war?" he challenged.

In a flicker of the lamp posts, a dark set of wings silhouetted behind him in a warning and Sam took quick heed, shaking his head.

"I didn't mean it like... can you... please, Cas," an anxious hand worked through his hair tightly. "At least come look at him."

Cas rolled his eyes, but he made his way inside nonetheless with Sam following close behind.

The motel room was dark, but the moon shining in through the shutters provided ample lighting. The carpets were stained past the point of recovery and coming up along the heater built beneath the rotted windows. The two beds in the room were at least a decade old and the TV seemed nearly twice that, but it had a weird homely feel to it. The bed closest to the window was unmade, the farthest bed occupied by a crumpled mass of moving blankets. Dean was curled tightly in them, fingers pressed into presumably fresh tears in the sheets, jerking faintly. Castiel faltered for a moment at the sight, brow tightening, before he walked over.

He didn't make an effort to help the writhing hunter, though, drawing Sam to come up beside him. It was then that he saw what the angel was staring at. Dean's arm was sticking out of the sheets and his sleeve had ridden up enough to show the handprint scar on his shoulder.

"Do you see this, Sam?"

Sam looked from the scar to the angel with a little nod.

"This is the mark I left when I saved your brother from Hell. This won't go away, no matter how many barriers I put in his memory. When he remembers it, he'll break. I don't think you'd prefer that."

Sam's shoulders sank faintly and the hope visibly faded from his features with the small sigh he allowed. When Cas saw that there wouldn't be any other arguments to follow, he raised two fingers and gently tapped Dean's forehead. The blond slackened almost immediately, groan dying off on a broken exhale. The angel picked him up under his armpits and hauled him back onto the pillows, covering him properly.

"That's the extent of what I can do, Sam. I'm sorry."

Before he could go, Sam briefly touched his shoulder.

"Can you tell me what happened to him?"

Castiel's brow tightened.

"In Hell."

The angel heaved an echo of the brunet's earlier sigh and looked skyward, increasingly looking more and more as though he'd rather be anywhere else, but he nodded all the same and walked back to the door. When the two were outside, he rested his thighs to the driver's side of the hood. Sam reclaimed his spot on the whole of the hood. The stars hadn't moved.

"I don't know the entirety of your brother's stay," Castiel made clear, the folds of his trench coat catching the edge of the wind.

Sam nodded in understanding, forgetting the other couldn't see.

"Just... tell me what you know."

The angel shifted faintly against the hood and tilted his head to the stars again.

"All of Heaven knew the righteous man was in Hell the second he entered. We knew its price, that it was the first seal, but the other angels... No one wanted to touch your brother. They assumed his time spent in Hell might... warm him up to the idea of being Michael's vessel."

Sam's brows raised and his lips drew together thinly.

"I know. I was there when my father constructed his soul," Cas turned, basically echoing the other's expression before he turned back. "So I made the journey myself. For... forty years... I walked through the place my father and my brother had built in tandem, passing the cells constructed to hold the damned and trying to keep my wings out of the fires erected to mock the mortal stories that have circled through the generations..."

He gave a little exhale at the memory, shoulders rolling unconsciously. Sam wondered how burnt his wings were. Then he wondered what his wings looked like. The silhouettes were feathered, but were there any physical manifestations that could blacken or was it all the same blinding light that would shine through their eyes? Could that light blacken too? Cas was going on though, so he stopped wondering.

"Wading through all the souls became a torment. Some had tarnished long ago and were beyond saving. It took me years to fight my way past them without drawing too much attention. Down there... I was a beacon. I was the purest thing in Hell, and I was unwelcome. Other souls... they had a chance. They were darker, yes... but I could've saved them, too. Innocent people that had done nothing more than make a stupid choice- all just clinging and pleading...

"Those forty years burnt me out. For every step I took, I had to fight off more souls than you can comprehend. Some lunged at me to just be... done with it. I was almost tempted to give up... but then... I saw your brother. He stood out in the darkness; the second brightest soul there to mine. The second I found him, I grabbed onto his soul and let it be known that Dean Winchester was saved."

Sam found his throat drying, eyes widening fractionally as the mention sparked a memory in the back of his head.

"That's what woke Anna up from... her angel coma?" he clarified.

Castiel's shoulders jerked in a faint tense, but he nodded as he looked back at the hunter.

"The righteous man was freed from the unholy place."

For a moment, maybe because it was so late, he felt a little stab of envy. Why was his brother the righteous man? Why was his brother destined to be Michael? Why couldn't he have been the hero? He didn't want to be Lucifer's 'prom dress'. He didn't want to be anyone's prom dress. He didn't even want this lifestyle. He was supposed to be a lawyer! A normal life was the only thing he had asked for, and instead...

He looked back up with a little sigh, thinking about the hand print on Dean's arm. That was the only thing keeping his brother from forgetting entirely. Cutting it off wasn't an option though. That would be more suspicious. He didn't even know if a holy mark could burn off, especially if it had ties to the soul. Which raised a question in itself.

"If you grabbed his soul, why is his shoulder with the hand print?"

Castiel's lips give a twitch at the question, fingers unconsciously curling.

"When a claim is put on a human soul, it leaves a mark," he explained, sounding as though he had rehearsed this many times before.

"So you claimed my brother's soul?"

Castiel didn't look at the hunter when he nodded, not batting an eye.

"You both are within my charge and under my claim. It's a warning to my brothers to stay back."

"Didn't seem to stop Anna."

Castiel's jaw twitched, but he didn't comment.

"What did Dean... what was... what did they do to him?"

The angel kept his gaze skyward, tilting his head back far enough to look at the moon. "Your brother was tortured until death, and then revived. Over and over. Then, eventually, he took up torturing to save himself the pain."

"Dean wouldn't," Sam denied a little too quickly.

The idea of it made his stomach hurt. His brother... the hero, the savior... the _righteous _man. He had seen Dean in the warehouses though. He knew how to use those tools. Well.

"Forty years can change someone," the angel only added to the ache in his heart.

Sam sat up and rested his forearms on his thighs, shaking his head. "What do I do, then? Is there... any way I can help him?"

Castiel lifted himself up from the hood and grounded his gaze, hands back into his trench coat pocket. A little shrug swayed his shoulders.

"It's the apocalypse. Might want to take care of that first."

Sam sighed, looking down at he pavement. "Right."

And a wing beat later, Castiel was gone.

* * *

**Sorry that it's out of character. One day I'll master this. **

**-F.J. III**


End file.
